Trust cannot work in isolation from SIC, says MSP
LOCAL MSP Tavish Scott has voiced concerns at the manner in which Shetland Charitable Trust took its recent decision to cut funding for a variety of groups in the islands.
Less than a fortnight ago the charitable trust agreed to cut its annual spending from £10.5 million to £8.5 million between now and 2020.
The specific detail of the cuts was agreed in private at a trust meeting on Thursday 28 May, following which it has emerged that the Swan Trust, Shetland Folk Festival, Accordion and Fiddle Festival and the Shetland Churches Council Trust are to lose all of their SCT funding gradually over four years.
It is not yet clear what the impact will be on the big three trusts – amenity, arts and recreational – funded by the SCT, or the implications for rural care homes.
Scott said: “These big decisions have been taken in private and with no consultation. No wonder the groups affected are concerned and very disappointed.
“The folk festival and fiddle and accordion festival are very important to Shetland. They are culturally and socially significant for our islands. But they also put Shetland on a far wider map.
“If the charitable trust really want to cut all their funding then there has to be another way to assist these essential bodies. The trust cannot do this in isolation from the SIC. There has to be a joined up approach to the benefit of Shetland.
“I hope that the organising committees of all the affected groups will ask for a review of these decisions. That would give some space to consider how best to maintain essential funding for the benefit of Shetland.
“I want to see local festivals that have an international perspective prosper and grow. That should be Shetland’s objective.”
SCT spending has been capped at £11 million in recent years, though it underspent that budget by around £500,000 in 2014/15.
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Chairman Bobby Hunter says it has been told by City of London advisers that £8.5 million a year is a sustainable spending level between now and 2020.
Its draft financial statement for 2014/15 records income of £8.4 million – mostly from dividends, local investments and rent – though a bumper year on the stock market also saw its reserves rise from £222 million to £240 million.
General manager Ann Black confirmed last week that any capital growth in the remainder of this decade would be banked in the hope of being able to increase spending post-2020.
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